Lock and Key(55)
Author: Sarah Dessen

For a moment we just sat there, the quiet of the kitchen all around us. Finally I said, “Do you think Mom’s okay?”

“I don’t know,” she replied. And then, more softly, “I hope so.”

Maybe to anyone else, her saying this would have seemed strange. But to me, it made perfect sense, as this was the pull of my mother: then, now, always. For all the coldness, her bad behavior, the slights and outright abuse, we were still tied to her. It was like those songs I’d heard as a child, each so familiar, and all mine. When I got older and realized the words were sad, the stories tragic, it didn’t make me love them any less. By then, they were already part of me, woven into my consciousness and memory. I couldn’t cut them away any more easily than I could my mother herself. And neither could Cora. This was what we had in common—what made us this us.

After outlining the last few terms of my punishment (mandatory checking-in after school, agreeing to therapy, at least for a little while), Cora squeezed my shoulder, then left the room, Roscoe rousing himself from where he’d been planted in the doorway to follow her upstairs. I sat in the quiet of the kitchen for a moment, then I went out to the pond.

The fish were down deep, but after crouching over the water for a few minutes, I could make out my white one, circling by some moss-covered rocks. I’d just pushed myself to my feet when I heard the bang of a door slamming. When I turned, expecting to see Cora, no one was there, and I realized the sound had come from Nate’s house. Sure enough, a moment later I saw a blond head bob past on the other side of the fence, then disappear.

Like the night before, when I’d been poised with Roscoe at the top of the walk, my first instinct was to go back inside. Avoid, deny, at least while it was still an option. But Nate had taken me out of those woods. For my own twisted reasons, I might not have wanted to believe this made us friends. But now, if nothing else, we were something.

I went inside, picked up his sweatshirt from the counter, then took in a breath and started across the grass to the fence. The gate was slightly ajar, and I could see Nate through the open door to the nearby pool house, leaning over a table. I slid through the gate, then walked around the pool to come up behind him. He was opening up a stack of small bags, then lining them up one by one.

“Let me guess,” I said. “They’re for cupcakes.”

He jumped, startled, then turned around. “You’re not far off, actually,” he said when he saw me. “They’re gift bags.”

I stepped in behind him, then walked around to the other side of the table. The room itself, meant to be some kind of cabana, was mostly empty and clearly used for the business; a rack on wheels held a bunch of dry-cleaning, and I recognized some of Harriet’s milk-crate storage system piled against a wall. There was also a full box of WE WORRY SO YOU DON’T HAVE TO air fresheners by the door, giving the room a piney scent that bordered on medicinal.

I watched quietly as Nate continued to open bags until the entire table was covered. Then he reached beneath it for a box and began pulling plastic-wrapped objects out of it, dropping one in each bag. Clunk, clunk, clunk.

“So,” I said as he worked his way down the line, “about yesterday.”

“You look like you feel better.”

“Define better.”

“Well,” he said, glancing at me, “you’re upright. And conscious.”

“Kind of sad when that’s an improvement,” I said.

“But it is an improvement,” he replied. “Right?”

I made a face. Positivity anytime was hard for me to take, but in the morning with a hangover, almost impossible. “So,” I said, holding out the sweatshirt, “I wanted to bring this back to you. I figured you were probably missing it.”

“Thanks,” he said, taking it and laying it on a chair behind him. “It is my favorite.”

“It does have that feel,” I replied. “Well worn and all that.”

“True,” he said, going back to the bags. “But it also reflects my personal life philosophy.”

I looked at the sweatshirt again. “‘You swim’ is a philosophy? ”

He shrugged. “Better than ‘you sink,’ right?”

Hard to argue with that. “I guess.”

“Plus there’s the fact,” he said, “that wearing that sweatshirt is the closest I might get to the U now.”

“I thought you had a scholarship,” I said, remembering the guy who’d called out to him in the parking lot.

“I did,” he said, going back to dropping things into the bags. “But that was before I quit swim team. Now I’ve got to get in strictly on my grades, which frankly are not as good as my swimming.”

I considered this as he moved down the next row, still adding things to the bags. “So why did you quit?”

“I don’t know.” He shrugged. “I was really into it when I lived in Arizona, but here . . . it just wasn’t that fun anymore. Plus my dad needed me for the business.”

“Still, seems like a big decision, giving it up entirely,” I said.

“Not really,” he replied. He reached down, picking up another box. “So, was it bad when you came in last night?”

“Yeah,” I said, somewhat surprised by the sudden change in subject. “Jamie was really pissed off.”

“Jamie was?”

“I know. It was bizarre.” I swallowed, taking a breath. “Anyway, I just wanted to say . . . that I appreciate what you did. Even if, you know, it didn’t seem like it at the time.”

“You weren’t exactly grateful,” he agreed. Clunk, clunk, clunk.

“I was a bitch. And I’m sorry.” I said this quickly, probably too quickly, and felt him look up at me again. So embarrassing, I thought, redirecting my attention to the bag in front of me. “What are you putting in there, anyway? ”

“Little chocolate houses,” he replied.

“What? ”

“Yeah,” he said, tossing one to me. “See for yourself. You can keep it, if you want.”

Sure enough, it was a tiny house. There were even windows and a door. “Kind of strange, isn’t it?” I said.

“Not really. This client’s a builder. I think they’re for some open house or something.”

I slid the house into my pocket as he dropped the box, which was now almost empty, and pulled out another one, which was full of brochures, a picture of a woman’s smiling face taking up most of the front. QUEEN HOMES, it said. LET US BUILD YOUR CASTLE! Nate started sliding one into each bag, working his way down the line. After watching him for a moment, I reached across, taking a handful myself and starting on the ones closest to me.